Patient Gamers

16086 readers

141 users here now

A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.

^(placeholder)^

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

cod@lemmy.world

briongloid@aussie.zone

BurntWits@sh.itjust.works

101

Great games you would recommend from before 1990? (feddit.org)

submitted 1 day ago by Wrufieotnak@feddit.org to c/patientgamers@sh.itjust.works

108 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I noticed that pretty much all games I played in my life have been released after 1990. So now I'm asking those with earlier experience here:
Which games can you recommend from before that time?

But: they should still be fun in their own right and not just interesting to play in an historian sense of trying to understand how genres developed.

Games I played that are older than 1990:

Tetris (classic for a reason)
Pacman (interesting but simple)
Prince of Persia (was too young to understand how to correctly play this game, I should maybe try to play it again)
The Legend of Zelda (too old school and clunky for my liking)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Shihali@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Sounds like point and click adventures might be your jam? Check out the Macventures (which had NES ports, although some of the ports go past your cutoff date): Deja Vu, Shadowgate, Uninvited.

Point and click adventures were a very popular genre at the time, although they had a well-earned reputation for difficulty and illogic. Someone who knows more about them could give you more specific advice.

I played a lot of JRPGs, and it's hard to recommend JRPGs of the period. They're rather different from both their 90s descendants and their late 80s WRPG contemporaries, and you look like you would much prefer 90s JRPGs. The 80s have two phases: the antique JRPGs focused on exploring the world with a simple plot, and the pre-classic JRPGs with a much heavier focus on plot not yet accompanied by much skill at storytelling or pacing. The best of the antique JRPGs is Dragon Quest 3/Dragon Warrior 3 (1988). It's a little complex to just jump into, so if you bounce off the complexity I would retreat to Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior (1986). If Dragon Warrior's grinding weren't so slow, it would be easy to recommend as a tutorial game to anyone trying to get into JRPGs.

If you'll take a game from 1990 on the nose, Dragon Quest 4/Dragon Warrior 4 is the most polished pre-classic JRPG in your time range. If not, Phantasy Star 2 (1989). But these games are hard to recommend nowadays to someone with modern tastes because they're not as polished as Dragon Quest 3 and don't have a 1990s-sized storage device for better storytelling and writing. The one thing I'll say for Phantasy Star 2's writing is that it has the guts to go places that games even now rarely go.